Watch: Facebook Reactions now live in Ireland and Spain

9 Oct 2015

As we reported yesterday, Facebook has rolled out a new Reactions feature in Ireland and Spain, allowing users to do more than just ‘like’ what we see.

Since this morning, Irish and Spanish-based Facebook users have been able to choose from seven emoji-based reactions. So now you can like, love, haha, yay, wow, sad or angry as you please.

The symbols are hidden from view for people outside of Ireland and Spain, it seems, with our attempts to spread the yay to the US so far failing. It doesn’t even appear as a general ‘like’ on their pages, which we thought would be the natural result.

It was on the mobile site first thing this morning, and the main site, too. However the app roll-out has been far slower.

Facebook Reactions work for me on the app, but I’m in the vast minority in the office with this capability. Yay!

We’re (Ireland and Spain) being used as test cases at the moment, giving Facebook handy readings on two of the major languages spoken by its users.

“People have asked about the dislike button for many years,” Zuckerberg said last month. “We’ve finally heard you and we’re working on this and we will deliver something that meets the needs of the larger community.”

Gordon Hunt was a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com